Honour Guard
by suspiciousteacup
Summary: Prompt from asoiafkinkmeme: "The direwolves are very protective of Cat. One night, Cat and Ned are especially loud and the wolves hear them from the kids' rooms. They think Ned is hurting her so they try to barge in. Then they begin to become aggressive towards Ned like snarling, growling, and butting him when he's with Cat."
1. Chapter 1

He passed no one as he headed towards Cat's chambers that night; the castle was asleep. Ned walked slowly, enjoying the silence and the solitude usually only offered to him by the heart tree in the godswood. He passed the children's' rooms, but did not look in on them. They woke easily, now. Before Robb and Jon had found the direwolf pups, his children had all been deep sleepers, difficult to rouse. However since then, the direwolves had slept with the children and awoke at the slightest sound. Curiously, though they barely lifted their heads, the children awoke as their pets did. This seemed to trouble Cat, though he himself had not given it much thought until he saw it happen several times with Rickon, who was by far the deepest sleeper of their own pups.

The wolves had also taken to following Catelyn around the yard since an incident a week earlier when she had accidentally been struck by an overexcited hound that had been returning from a hunt. Nymeria and Grey Wind had been in the yard at the time and had savagely attacked the clumsy hound, seriously injuring it before Arya and Robb were able to call them off.

Ned frowned, lost in his thoughts, and almost walked into the door to his lady wife's bedchamber. He smiled, shook his head, and pushed the thoughts away with the door.

Catelyn was sitting on the windowsill with a fur around her, as was her custom. She was brushing her hair absent-mindedly, staring out over the wolfswood. He walked behind her and circled his arms around her. She never started at this action anymore, having grown accustomed to his silent greetings, and instead rose her arms to rest on his. He pressed his face into her hair and enjoyed the feeling of her against him.

He must have been enjoying it for a while as she remarked, "My lord, I do believe there is a perfectly serviceable bed for sleeping in not five paces from this sill."

He huffed a short laugh and pulled her off the ledge.

"Well noted, my lady. I too am of the opinion that we ought to make use of that perfectly serviceable bed." He retorted.

"The hour is late, my lord. Are you not tired?" She questioned, half-teasing, as they found themselves at the bed.

In answer he kissed her fiercely and pulled her to him, his body confirming that sleep was far from his mind.

He reached to touch her through her shift and it felt as thought there was indeed a fire there, not just an area that looked like a fire. She moaned into his mouth as her stroked her through her clothes.

Before long, he gave a grunt of annoyance and pulled off her shift roughly. She fell back onto the bed. Sitting on the edge, she reached for his face and their mouths reconnected almost violently as she started to deftly divest him of his clothes. He took this opportunity to explore her body blindly, his hands guiding him along familiar paths. The feel of the soft skin of her neck, her breasts, her back, fueled him as Cat finished her task and moved her hand lower to tease his stiff manhood.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him close. He groaned loudly as he connected with her and she shouted his name.

He moved rapidly inside her, his thrusts hard and deep. She cried out every time and threw her head back in pleasure. The fire that had started low in his belly had now spread to his entire body, his mind utterly lost to it. He was nearing his release, as was she.

It was then that he felt a sharp pain in his left leg.


	2. Chapter 2

He yelled and jumped back, leaving Cat. Grey Wind's jaws were firmly clamped around his left calf and the smallish pup had managed to keep his hold even as Ned had jumped.

"Down! DOWN!" He shouted, but the wolf hung on.

Grey Wind only released his grip on Ned when Catelyn came over and grabbed the scruff of his neck, ready to pull him off.

The small beast then relinquished Ned's leg, sat and looked up at her, his ears pricked up, at attention.

They both stared at him for a moment, shocked by what had occurred. Then Catelyn tore her eyes away to focus on Ned's leg.

"Gods be good! You need Maester Luwin!" She cried.

Ned was still slightly dazed by the sudden attack. How had the wolf pup even gotten in? He then remembered that he had not completely closed the door before going to Catelyn. Even so, Robb's rooms were far enough away and they surely ha not been _that_ loud…

"Maester Luwin?" he replied.

"Your. Leg. Is. Injured." She explained slowly.

He looked down at it. Several puncture wounds from Grey Wind's teeth were bleeding freely, but were not terribly painful.

"I shall simply rinse it with hot wine and wrap it in cloth." He said dismissively, already heading over to the small table by the fire, where a pitcher of heated wine was always left for Catelyn on colder nights such as this one.

She sighed in exasperation and then went to retrieve a scrap swath of cloth from a dress she had been sewing for Arya. She poured the wine over his leg and wrapped the cloth around the wound.

"Why would he do something like that?" wondered Catelyn aloud, her voice sharp. "I shall have to speak with Robb about training his direwolf properly."

Ned smiled and raised a hand to her cheek, which was still flushed from the ordeal… and the events prior to it.

"He was just protecting his mother." He joked.

"Protecting his mother?" Repeated Catelyn wonderingly.

"The pup is young, and does not understand the difference between cries of pleasure and cries of pain." She mused, looking over at Grey Wind, who was snarling at Ned, ears back and lip curled.

Catelyn retrieved her shift and a gown and went over to the snarling pup. She scooped him up easily and he gave a small yelp of alarm.

"You have been naughty. I was in no danger and you had no right to attack my lord husband. Off to bed with you!" She chastised as she carried him out of the room.

She closed the door behind her and Ned rose from his chair.

"Now that we need not longer worry about interrupting pups…" he rumbled.

Cat frowned, "Your leg - "

"Is currently unimportant." He finished, reaching again to pull her to him.

She did not protest further.

…

Ned tried to conceal his limp as he walked with Catelyn down to the Great Hall the next morning. The bite hurt worse now that the adrenaline from the previous night had left him. He wondered at Catelyn's assessment of the attack, that Grey Wind was protecting his mother. That sounded too much like one of Old Nan's tales of the old Winter Kings and their wolves. The wolf pups must have simply been alerted by Catelyn's near miss with the hound the previous week, heard Cat's cries and protected as their instincts told them to.

As they reached the hall, they overheard Robb explaining how Grey Wind had woken him that past night and this morning his wolf had returned with a bloody muzzle.

Arya interrupted "Nymeria was up too! She was snarling and pacing around the room!"

"She woke Lady and I up too," sniffed Sansa.

"And then Lady started growling and pawing at the door!" continued Arya, undeterred by Sansa's cry to protest at the idea that her wolf might behave like a wolf.

"Shaggy was scratching the door too," interjected Rickon, "but Bran said we were not to let him or Bran's wolf out."

"You really ought to name your wolf, it's so long to say 'Bran's wolf' each time." Sansa told Bran, who merely shrugged and looked over thoughtfully at where the pups were sitting in the corner of the room, looking hopefully at the servants carrying out the morning meal.

However, when Ned and Catelyn entered the room, the pups immediately turned to him, flattened their ears and bared their teeth at him.

"Settle down!" Robb reprimanded the wolves, as Bran asked, "Father, are you well? You are limping."

"A minor hurt." Ned answered dismissively, "Though you ought to train your pup better, lest their bad behaviour change my mind about my decision to allow you to keep them." He said sternly.

"No! They are trained! You cannot send them all away! They merely got agitated! It wasn't even all of them!" Sansa cried, tears gathering in her eyes.

"Hush, sweetling." Catelyn said firmly, but not unkindly. "You father merely means that we must be sure they are not dangerous if you are to raise them."

"Why did Grey Wind attack you anyways?" Rickon queried.

Ned and Catelyn exchanged a glance and Ned observed that his wife was deeply flushed, the red creeping all of the way past her neckline. However she kept her head up and easily said, "I was clumsy and caused myself a minor injury. You father was helping me to sit when Grey Wind burst in and bit him."

They sat down, Ned warily eyeing the wolf pups that were now lying down, but still had their eyes trained on him.

"They must have thought you injured Mother and Grey Wind was just trying to protect her," mused Bran, echoing Cat's thought from the previous night.

"Well that's easy then," said Arya through a mouth full of oatcake. "We shall just tell the wolves that you did not hurt Mother and this was simply a misunderstanding."


	3. Chapter 3

It turned out that this was not so easily done. Though the children reprimanded their wolves many times over the course of the day, at least one wolf stuck to Catelyn like glue. They pressed back their ears whenever Ned approached her and would growl if they thought he was too close.

That night, when they retired to her chambers, Grey Wind was lying at the door and allowed only Cat entrance into the chamber.

"Stop this at once!" She commanded the pup. "He is my lord husband and your lord father and you will not treat him thusly!"

"It is all right Cat. I shall retire to my chamber for the night. Tomorrow we shall send them and the children to Hullen. He can teach them to train their pups and this problem shall soon be resolved." He said wearily, rubbing a hand along his jaw.

In truth, this behaviour unsettled him. Not simply because he was not allowed near his Cat, though this frustrated him greatly, but because the wolf pups did not to trust him. He did not know why the lack of trust bothered him so, but it saddened him to see how they tensed and growled when he got too close.

He made his way back to his chambers and readied himself for sleep. It was a cold night and he wondered how Cat would fare without him to warm her. He felt colder without her, his chambers dark and lonely.

…

The next night yielded the same result, however Lady was on guard. She did not growl but merely lay across the threshold and stood and pushed him back with her muzzle whenever Ned attempted to cross into his wife's chambers. Cat was not yet there, however Lady was adamant in her denial.

"This is going too far." Catelyn said from behind him.

Her brow was furrowed in frustration and Shaggydog trotted beside her.

"You seem to have a constant guard my lady." He tried to say it jokingly but his frustration seeped through.

She kissed him quickly and immediately bent to restrain Shaggy, who growled menacingly.

"Until we have resolved the issue, I think it best if you remain in your chambers at night, Ned." Cat said softly, face turned towards Shaggy, a hand resting on his head.

Ned sighed and closed his eyes.

"Hullen informed me that it may take a while to train them as they are smarter that hounds, as well as being more stubborn." He told her.

"How long?"

"Perhaps more than two turns of the moon."

"Two turns of the moon!" She exclaimed loudly, eyes widening. Then, composing herself "There must be some way in which we can help in their training in order to increase the speed of this process."

She bit her lip and continued, "My bed is cold without you, and I miss your touch."

A sharp pang of longing hit him then and he felt himself stiffen, the laces of his breeches straining.

"I do not know how we could convince them to let me alone." He said angrily.

Cat ran a hang through her hair, "We shall have to come up with a plan on the morrow as I confess I am much to tired to think of one now."

"Good night Cat." He said softly, catching her eyes with his.

"Sleep well, my love." She replied, a small smile betraying that she knew his sleep would not be confortable.

He hurried back to his rooms and quickly unlaced himself. Frustrated by his lack of control he thrust into his first, quickly stroking himself to his finish. He reasoned that Cat must have been doing the same; she too was easily frustrated by their separation. He thought on their past separations, they had been apart far longer than this in the past, so why did this seem to frustrate him more? Perhaps it was because it was so unnecessary. Most likely it was because he saw her every day but was unable to touch her. As he drifted into a fitful sleep, he thought of ways to resolve their dilemma.


	4. Chapter 4

"Let us go for a ride, my lord." Catelyn proposed brightly the following morning.

"You do not think the wolves will follow?" He asked.

"Not if we ask that the children restrain them until we have left the gates."

He liked the idea. It would be easy enough for the children to restrain the pups and then he and Cat might finally be alone together.

"We could ask for a luncheon to be packed and leave after we break our fast. We need not return until supper." He said enthusiastically.

She smiled broadly at him and he felt as though he were standing in a ray of sunlight.

…

The preparations were quickly made as they broke their fast. Though Bran's wolf still sat between their chairs as they ate and Shaggydog nipped at his ankles if he got too close to Cat, Ned found himself in high spirits as he and Cat entered the yard where their horses were waiting, Hodor holding the reins.

"My lady." Ned said as he offered Cat his hand to help her onto her horse.

Yet before her fingers could touch his, a small furry snout shoved his hand away.

Nymeria jumped up again, insistently pushing his hand away from Cat's and yelping.

"Arya!" He called angrily.

"Sorry Father!" called his youngest daughter as she came skidding towards him, mud already streaked across her dress despite the early hour.

Arya knelt and held Nymeria around the neck.

"I can mount by myself, Ned." Cat said gently as she swung herself gracefully onto her red mare. Ned grumpily mounted his own grey mare.

As they made to ride away, Nymeria broke free of Arya's hold and started nipping at the legs of Ned's horse. She reared and Ned swung off of her. He grabbed the reins as Nymeria continued to race around them, barking.

"Nymeria! Nymeria STOP!" yelled Arya, frantically trying to grab hold of her wolf.

"It's no use." Catelyn exclaimed angrily once the horse had been calmed. "We cannot ride away from this. We must find a way to teach them that you mean me no harm, else we shall never be alone."

…

The following night Ned heard a light knock on his door. He rolled out of bed.

He opened the door to find Cat, clad only in a shift and a robe. Then he noticed that for the first time in over a week, she was without her usual canine guard.

He raised his eyebrows in question.

"Bran had a bad dream when I went to check on him and his pup stayed with him." She explained. "We may actually have some time."

Ned wasted none of it. They embraced silently, his hands rising to run through her soft hair. The press of her body against his felt amazing and exhilarating after their separation. He kissed her feverishly, drinking her in. Somehow she had managed to get him out of his breeches in that time and now relieved him of his other nightclothes. He in turn disrobed her. He lay her down on top of the furs and kissed his way down her body, tongue and lips running lightly over her smooth skin.

She sighed as his mouth found her wet folds. He tasted her until he could bear it no longer and rose to join with her.

"I love you." She gasped as he slowly pushed into her.

"And I you." He answered, resting his forehead lightly against hers as moved slowly inside of her.

A glint of light caught his eye and he turned his head to see Bran's wolf standing in the doorway.

His head was cocked to one side as if confused.

"Back!" A voice whispered sternly from the shadows and Bran stepped into the room.

At the sight of his parents naked and intertwined Bran halted swiftly and stared, open mouthed as his wolf looked back and forth between his master and Ned and Cat.

"Bran! Go back to bed!" Cat whispered urgently as Ned rolled off of her and pulled up the blankets.

Bran obediently raced away and, after a moment, his wolf loped away after him.

"We will have to talk with them tomorrow." Cat sighed.

"I had hoped not to speak to them of this quite yet." He admitted.

She turned her head to face him, raised an eyebrow and jokingly said "They will not be children forever, and winter is coming."


	5. Chapter 5

"Theon said they were fucking." Bran said, his face innocent of his words.

The children and the wolves were all sitting in Bran's chambers, Sansa sewing, Arya petting Nymeria, Robb trying to be the mature adult, Rickon wrestling with Shaggy and Bran sitting demurely on his bed.

"Brandon!" reproached Sansa, her face bright as a tomato.

"What does that mean?" inquired Rickon, confused.

"That's when lords and ladies take off their clothes - " began Arya loudly.

"Lords and ladies do things alone that are nobody else's business," explained Robb curtly, though his face flamed as bright as Sansa's.

Rickon shrugged and went back to wrestling with Shaggydog.

"Why would they want to do that though?" asked Bran, clearly still unsure of what was being explained to him.

"You will understand when you are older. Theon had no right to tell you like that." Said Robb as Arya cackled at her siblings' embarrassment.

"I cannot believe that you just stood there!" she laughed.

"I - " Bran began angrily.

"Arya, stop that." Commanded Sansa, "He knew not what he was observing."

Ned took a deep breath and decided this was as good a moment as any to interrupt. He only hoped the wolves would not attack him as soon as he set foot trough the door. He looked to Cat, who had clearly decided the same thing. She gave him a curt nod.

As they entered, the children abruptly stopped talking and the wolves all rose to their feet. They froze for half a second, before Bran's wolf trotted over and gently licked Ned's hand. The wolf looked back at his brothers and sisters, before turning to stand by Ned's side.

"Well." Began Ned, shocked by the wolf's sudden warmth, "It seems as though we can have this discussion in peace."

"What are we talking about?" asked Rickon, looking around in confusion. His eyes landed on Bran's wolf "Look Father! The wolves trust you now!" he continued excitedly, oblivious to the seriousness that had settled over the room.

"Mayhap the little one is not ready for winter yet." Said Cat gently.

"If he does not stay, we will have to have this talk over again in a few years' time." Ned whispered back.

"So be it." Catelyn sighed. "Rickon, take Shaggy and go to Old Nan. Be good."

Rickon quickly rose and ran out of the room, Shaggy hot on his heels.

"I'm not ready either!" Bran quickly interjected.

Ned smiled at his second son "I am confident that you will understand."

Bran sighed, resigned.

"Might Arya and I have this talk alone with Mother?" asked Sansa.

Ned and Cat exchanged a look.

"No." He said firmly, though he dearly wished he did not have to explain what he was about to explain to his little ladies.

"We will have this talk as a family." Said Catelyn firmly.

Lady padded towards the door and lay down across the entrance, barring the exit in support of their words.

"All right." Said Arya "Just tell us then. I would like to get this over with."

"Well at least we do not have to worry about the wolves any longed." Ned whispered to Cat.

"No, although I suspect we may have some new worries to contend with in the near future." She answered quietly.

They shared a final look and Ned braced himself for the coming discussion.


End file.
